Welcome to the Bulgin podcast my name is Mark and i'm your host more and more of us are familiar with the concept of smart technology from our homes for example maybe we'll have a smart fridge or we have smart bulbs and a smart device to control them but out with our homes the concept of smart technology is evolving and it's growing at a fast pace from factories and farms and much more in this episode of the podcast i'm joined by David Pike the connector geek and we'll talk about the concept of smart technology what it is and how Bulgin is playing a key role in its evolution David welcome back to the Bulgin podcast i hope you're well yes thank you Mark yeah good to see you so what we're going to talk about today um is another um sphere in which Bulgin is playing an important role through the humble connector and it's the world of smart technology so i think all of us are familiar and to agree with what smart technology is if we've got a smart device in our home so it could be one of those little sort of pocket pocket shaped things that you talk to and you can tell it to add things to your shopping list or turn the lights on um but smart technology is an area that's grown and expanding so can you just elaborate a little bit on exactly what smart technology is absolutely i mean you've hit it on the head it's smart technology are is is a series of devices that are connected and will talk to each other so you talk about talking to your speaker at home and adding things to your shopping list that's done because the the connected technology sees each of these machines talking to each other so you tell a smart speaker to add stuff to your shopping list that then talks to the cloud it adds to your shopping list and you can recover that at any time and then you've got the smart home where you can do exactly as you say you can turn the lights on and off you can set the heating before you get home so it's nice and toasty warm when you get in they're just two simple examples of how these things work it's all about machines talking to each other so in this case we've got our smartphones we'll talk to our house our smartphone will talk to our refrigerator the fact is that's just the the tip of the iceberg smart technology is all about machines communicating with each other and that could be in the factory environment that could be outside in the city that could be where energy is being created in the in the grid it's all about sharing information from one machine to another in order to make the system as a whole work more flexibly uh more quickly and to gather more information okay so i mean when you're talking about that there's one word that continually comes into mind for me and maybe it does for those are watching and listening but the word is connectivity and of course when you say connectivity you immediately hear connector and you know if you work at Bulgin your eyes should light up so this world of connectivity is expanding and growing isn't it it is it's not all about connectors but part of this this new smart revolution is being powered by wireless technology the fact that we've now got things like 5g wireless technology that can all of a sudden share data as quickly as if it was on a plugged in cable but the fact is that all of these devices still need huge amounts of connectivity even wireless devices need aerials and antennae to receive information that needs then to be connected to the rest of the device so there are connectors within the box there's connectors on the outside of the box everything needs power it could be that they're powered by the mains it could be that they're charged with a battery but they needed a battery charging connector there will be connectors all over these things so for for an engineer um this is a world that they will no doubt be increasingly having to delve into um you know the world of connectivity but with a specific purpose of power and smart technology and that's when we need to go beyond the home the domestic setting and move into places like smart factories now we've previously spoken on the podcast about smart farm and we'll touch on that again on this episode but what is a smart factory and how does a smart factory differ from a traditional factory a smart factory is a facility where all of the machines again it comes back to machine sharing information all of the machines will be networked together and sharing information with each other so a traditional factory if you think about the the old 19th century picture of a factory with machines doing one operation each machine would work in isolation it would be operated by a single person they'd perform that one function then whatever they would making would would move on to another another machine somewhere else but each machine will be controlled locally and work on its own the idea of a smart factory is that each of these machines shares information with each other about what they're up to so if you're talking about a production line but there's a whole series of processes that happen one after the other each machine will communicate with its neighbours to say right well i'm doing process x as soon as this finishes this needs to go on to process y which is the next machine over that machine needs to then draw upon the resources the the raw materials that it might need to continue out that process so it becomes a fully integrated network of machines sharing information and allowing things to work smoother there's also another advantage especially with these new generations of machines is that that they can adapt very quickly because they're sharing information with each other and then with the larger network of the rest of the business it allows these machines to change almost immediately from one process to another to respond to different demands so the smart factory is not just hopefully more efficient and quicker than the old-fashioned image that we have of a production line but it's so much more responsive that's going to be great for the manufacturers it cuts down response times it reduces time to market it makes them more efficient in the use of their resources one of the key things especially when we're looking at connectivity though is these machines are having to work on the factory floor and the factory floor can be a pretty unforgiving place you've got heat you've got vibration you've got potential for for moisture and other contaminants lubricants all sorts of stuff sloshing around the factory floor and we're starting to deploy this advanced technology into that harsh conditions and this technology was never designed to cope with that kind of stuff so all of a sudden it's being put into an environment that could potentially damage it so designers are having to do a lot of work to make sure that they're protected and they continue to function even in those conditions so it sounds like the information the data that is necessary to make these smart factories function to allow the machines and the various different components in the factory to communicate with one another that data that information is a commodity it's a resource the way that cotton or steel would have been in factories and traditional factories in years gone by yes data is is a raw material now in the same way that all those other materials you mentioned would be data is going to be vital to how these things are put together that data is gathered by sensors by vision systems by all sorts of different sources that all need to be then transmitted back to either a central location or to what's called edge computing which are devices that are are placed close to where they needed to be used and this information then gets processed and then redistributed so as we've spoken about before on the podcast and has a theme that will i think we'll always come back to as the within these smart factories within these environments um the connectors that Bulgin manufacture will play a key role in making sure that the the data and the power are securely and reliably and robustly transferred around these smart factories yes the the the smart factory has all these different processes that that will expose all the equipment to the these conditions and at the same time there needs to be that security of data that security of power to make sure that everything continues to function and the connectors play one of the most important roles in this connect is one of the few components that sit on the outside of an enclosure a lot of the electronics will be hidden within the enclosure protected in a nice waterproof box or protected on shock mounts so that they're not vibrated to death the connectors are the bits that actually people see there are the bits on the outside of the box so they have to withstand all of these harsh conditions possibly more than any other component again it's it's a world that's evolving that's changing and it's an ongoing concern because the technology is evolving and changing you've mentioned the rollout of 5g the internet of things as something that isn't just in people's homes you know the idea of a smart fridge that can order milk for you without you even realizing that you've that you need milk um is one thing but when it comes to the goods the services that are part of our country's gdp that are you know produced in factories this move this evolution into smart factories as it sounds like essential for the sort of ongoing success of the economy yes and it's it's in it's a really interesting thing to think about we've been talking about a smart factory and i think almost all of us will think of a large building with all the machines contained within but we could equally be talking about a a distributed system so you mentioned about things like logistics we could assume or we could talk about a smart factory being the the accumulation of all of the systems so in the case of a logistics setup we could be talking about the vehicles themselves and the distribution center all of which are sharing information because we've got this 5g network that means that we can we can share information wirelessly so the smart factory doesn't need to be just in a uh one big building it could be a large distributed network over a large distance it could be as we say logistical vehicles it could be we've talked about the farm it could be the farm with with different vehicles at different parts of the farm we even talking about things like the power generation grid the grid that gets our power to our homes this is a large distributed network and we're talking about devices within that network that are sharing information with each other so the the bits that put it together don't need to be in one building they could be separated by kilometers and they need connectivity locally they need the connectivity of the data back to the center part so it's all it's all of a similar piece but the the actual form it takes could be vastly different everything you're describing certainly plays into the definition of the fourth industrial revolution where all of these components of manufacturing of industry and they could be in disparate sectors but they can all be connected via networking data etc and of course we always have to go back to Bulgin connectors are absolutely playing a part and will play a part in that revolution yes these devices being especially when we're looking at the the distributed network that we talked about these devices are going to be deployed into all sorts of conditions and they need to work and so in order to provide the connectivity to make them work engineers need to rely on the the components they choose and Bulgin are experts at designing products that will survive in those harsh conditions they will put up with extremes of temperature they will be able to resist the wind and weather they'll be resistant to the the ultraviolet radiation that comes from sunlight and they can resist things like the the lubricant oil fuel oil that might get spilt on them and still continue to work because especially if these things are in a large distributed network getting to a component and fixing it might not be the easiest thing in the world so to be able to provide the security that says we know that part's going to continue to work it won't need to be maintained it won't need to be looked after it's just going to carry on working needs confidence in the components and that's what Bulgin provides so you mentioned their harsh environments and we've got a full episode on agriculture but we need to bring smart farms into the discussion of smart technologies and internet of things and you know the fourth industrial revolution how traditional aspects of producing things are evolving and changing as the technology is allowing it to and of course smart farming as is one of them so as i said we've got a full episode on agriculture but for the purposes of talking about smart technology David just give us a quick overview of um what a smart farm actually is well smart farming is taking some of those ideas that we we've seen in the smart factory and applying it to that agricultural world so agriculture is under a lot of pressure there are more and more people in the world more food needs to be produced and at the same time we're more and more concerned about our impact on the environment so farmers are trying to do more with less use less water use fewer pesticides herbicides and technology is playing a big part of that because technology can help the farmer identify how their farm is performing and technology is is providing that data so again it comes back to the fact it's data the devices that might be scattered around the farm or fitted to farm machinery like tractors and combines they will be collecting information about the farm sharing it back with the farmer allowing them to to make decisions about the best way to look after their crops whether it's to irrigate certain parts of the the farm more more often or whether it's to provide feed to another part that technology is is working in a very similar way to the factory but for a different end the technology that's going to be used on a farm um it's not necessarily going to be different from the technology that you already described would be used in a smart factory you know we're talking about the connections required to transfer power and to transfer data what about the size of the components is sizing an issue on a smartphone size is is becoming more of an issue when it comes to things like connectors because it's interesting the electronics world is seeing all of the devices that have been created to be smaller and smaller so we're looking at sensors that could be the size of your thumb or even smaller vision systems that can sit onto a printed circuit board that's the size of a postage stamp and yet give really high definition video so the electronics that is is being created to to gather this information is getting smaller that means that the connectors need to be smaller because connectors are now coming to the point where they are one of the largest components that designers have to deal with so from that point of view manufacturers like Bulgin are are developing solutions that allow smaller and smaller connectors to do the jobs that they need to do so if we look at the the mini series and even the 4000 sorry the 400 series buccaneer connected from Bulgin these things are about 19 millimeters across again about the size of your thumb so they're no bigger than the sensors that they might need to connect back but at the same time they still need to provide the same level of environmental protection that the bigger connectors from the buccaneer range do the things that need both hands to to plug in because they're providing huge amounts of power so electronics and its miniaturization is providing challenges for connected designers but Bulgin are providing solutions that that help solve that so on a smart farm then like any farm and we'll come to the subject of urban farms in a minute because they're obviously a little bit different but you know your traditional farm it's outside it's going to be exposed to potentially extreme cold and extreme heat depending on geographically where it is it's going to be exposed to moisture and it's going to be exposed definitely to dust and other elements that you just do not want or can't afford to have ingressing into a data or power connection so with that in mind what sort of manufacturing what sort of materials should um an engineer be looking for in a connector when they're considering introducing them into a smartphone yes all of those elements will will try and attack the connector and because we're talking about agriculture being a long-term process many of these devices will need to be installed outside in the elements exposed to all those things you've mentioned and need to be left there for weeks if not months at a time so the materials that the engineer chooses have to provide the stability that means that they're going to continue to function so plastics are a key part of Bulgin connectors many Bulgin buccaneer connectors are manufactured from from plastic material it's lightweight it's resistant to corrosion to standard corrosion that you might find attacking a metal connector but at the same time not all plastics are created equal certain plastics can degrade in the ultraviolet radiation that is found in sunlight and it changes the structure of the plastic so it's important that the right materials are chosen that are going to provide the the qualities that the connector will need over a long period of time a lot of the Bulgin connectors are made from polyamide which is a very strong very stable plastic for certain other applications they might use polycarbonate or delrin depending on the the application needed but the common thing between all of these is that the material has got to provide the protection over a long period of time when left in those environments whether it's dunked in a puddle or whether it's stuck up a tree being blasted by sunlight every day the the materials have got to provide that kind of security and you know we we've said this previously on the podcast at any point if at any point you know an engineer who is watching or listening to this podcast if they have any questions about the type of connect or the infrastructure that they um they're going to need to bring into a project that they're planning go to the Bulgin website Bulgin.com you can review case studies you can dive into industry industry specific case studies so you could be working on developing um a smart farm and developing a network in a smart factory you can go into the Bulgin website and you can get lots of information plus there's the ability to reach out and speak to um an industry-specific expert who can give you even more information on the type of connectors and the components that that you're going to need to utilize in your network that's that's a sort of covered the the evolution of the traditional farming to the smart farm but there's another type of farming where um connectors are playing a hugely vital role for similar reasons but for some different reasons and that is urban farms so David give us an overview of what an urban farm is an urban farm is an installation that happens away from the traditional farm of their mines normally we think of farmers as broad fields taking up a huge amount of space urban farming actually tries to make use of the spaces that are available within the city so whether it's old subway tunnels or whether it's basements of buildings and using those spaces to grow plants far away from traditional sunlight or the wind and weather that would normally provide them the moisture so we're talking about crops being grown in trays sometimes called vertical farming because they're often stacked one on top of the other at one of each other the plants have been grown in these trays with their roots either dangling in water or even more nowadays uh being used was called aeroponics so they're being sprayed with a fine mist that includes all the nutrients that they need to grow so these are plants that are grown in the middle of cities which is very close to where they're going to be needed so we're keeping our food miles down it's a hugely efficient use of space because we're talking about abandoned buildings that might not be used for anything else and because we're stacking the crops one on top of the other we're getting more yield for every square meter that we've got so they're very ecologically friendly and they're being able to provide fresh greens for example to the set city centers without having to travel many miles but in order to do this because it's a completely artificial environment there's no sunlight there's no rain the farmer has to control every aspect of what's going on inside this farm so that's everything from the temperature the the light because we're using LEDs to create artificial light to help the plants grow we're talking about all of the feed all the nutrients all the moisture that they need and technology is vital for that we need sensors that are going to tell us what the conditions are at the moment that we need computing power to be able to understand how that's going to affect how these plants will grow and then we're talking about the machinery that will help deliver those things the plants need whether it's moisture or feed and it's all going to require technology and that's again where the connectors come in everything within this network has got to be connected together and it's got to withstand these again quite harsh environments we might not be out in the sunlight we might not be out in the wind and weather but there's a lot of moisture about there there's a lot of light from these these LEDs that are going to be around there's lots of conditions that that mean it's it's tough on electronics and ultimately food is being grown so there can't be anything in that process that's susceptible to breakdown so again it comes back to the the reliability the robustness of the Bulgin connectors that are going to be used and the data and networking infrastructure of a smart farm absolutely nothing within the connectors has got to be allowed to contaminate the food and then once maybe one crop has been grown there will be the need to wash down the whole urban farm before the next crop is grown that might use high pressure spray so again the electronics needs to be able to withstand the needs of the urban farmer who needs to wash down his his setup before he grows the next crop so again it's a pretty unforgiving environment for electronics okay so that's us covered off smart factories smart farms including urban farms let's talk about smart cities so smart cities sounds like it's an extension of what we can already access technology and um internet of things in our own homes but i spread across an entire city is that correct or is there a bit more to it than that and smart city will actually incorporate a whole range of things so it could be as simple as a network that will control the traffic management within a city but what makes that different to the traffic management systems of the past is that the the participants within that the vehicles the pedestrians and so forth they will start to become an active member of that network so the smart city is designed to take all of these things into account and react to live situations rather than simply working in a certain way it will allow the the managers of that smart city to to use data that's collected from lots of places again we're talking about sensors collecting information from lots of different places and using that to to help make decisions about the infrastructure of the city if more buses or trams need to be provided to one part of the city because of a spike in demand it will allow information to be collected and the the managers to actually perform some kind of changes to make that happen we're also potentially looking at the idea of distribution of energy around the city to again respond to demands that are locally spiking for whatever reason but again it is about data being collected at large different parts of the city shared centrally and then acted upon and again connectors are going to play a big part of that and again they're out in the the the wilds of the city the wind the weather the road spray the things that you might not find in the smart factory you're going to find on the streets we know the streets can sometimes be a bit dirty a bit mucky there's spray everywhere the electronics has got to last within those environments as well yeah i mean in our studio we've got a 5g hub so basically it gathers it collects a 5g signal from the air and it distributes it wirelessly around their studio and i think it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that just because you don't see physical wires you don't see physical connectors in your home or even you know in an office or a studio setting like this that there aren't wires and connectors at us but of course there are and in the smart cities is going to be across the entire city there will be connectors there will be wires and again power and data are having to be managed and controlled and evenly distributed in a reliable way and as we keep saying the connectors will play a vital role in this yes wireless connectivity or wireless communications don't mean the death of the connector it's just another part of an integrated system connectors are still going to be needed all over the place you've actually hit upon another interesting thing you've got your own little 5g cell within the studio 5g is actually enabling that same thing to happen in different parts of industry it could be that a factory will create their own 5g cell within the factory or a farm might be its own 5g cell again it helps the data to be transmitted it means that you don't necessarily have to rely upon the the the mobile communications 5g cell you can provide your own technology but again connectors are going to be all over this providing data providing power but what you just described in in terms of our own a little little um local pockets of data sounds similar to um something that that's described as a distributed energy resource in a in a local area they can have their own energy and they can access it am i picking that up correctly or have i missed the the boat entirely there odrs distributed energy resources that that relates to the smart grid so again we're using that word smart once more in this case it's to do with energy production so traditionally the best and most efficient way of producing energy was in an absolutely enormous power station and then transmitting it around the country using high temperature high tension cables the big overhead cables that you see well that's hugely expensive and it also it there's an impact on things like energy security we saw example last year where snow storms in texas had a really bad effect on power distribution of thousands of homes left without power for a long time snow is unusual enough in texas that they didn't really have a plan to cope with this distributed energy resources are is basically it's micro generation it's locally produced power so you see that a lot people have windmills on their roof they've got solar energy cells on their on their roof as well the idea is that you're collecting and creating energy locally at a much smaller scale but the modern technology has finally allowed that to happen efficiently all of a sudden we can have these small local power stations that might provide energy to one home or a small cluster of homes that's then integrated into the the grid they're not disconnected from the standard energy grid but there's technology that that provides the link between the grid because sometimes a home might be consuming consuming power from the grid because it's not producing energy enough energy of its own at other times when it's super sunny like it is here at the moment there'll be tons of energy being produced and low demand so the house can then share the the power back to the grid and actually be paid for it so there's a lot of sophisticated electronics within that that will manage that sharing function of this power and we're not just talking about solar energy and wind energy with the things that we're familiar with we're talking about the latest things like uh biofuel reactors small small reactors that will use uh organic fuel to create energy we've been hearing about biodiesel for for the powering of vehicles that may be part of it so it uses very similar technology to achieve a different goal in this case it's it's producing power locally sharing that with the network we'll share the network sharing power with you and having to control it okay so across the board you know and the theme of today's episode is smart technologies across the board things are changing some of it very subtle some of it on a much bigger scale is more obvious but across the board the world of connectors is an absolutely key and vital component of this evolution that's taking place now out of the Bulgin connectors out of the mass of family Bulgin connectors would it be fair to say that the circular connector the humble circular connector from Bulgin is going to play a huge part in the evolution of all these smart technologies it is because Bulgin the circular connector is a it's an ideal form for creating a connector that can withstand these conditions and that's the one thing we have to remember when we're talking about these these smart technologies one of the one of the things that's in common between all of them is that we are deploying more and more technology into these tough conditions and so the connector needs are going to to continue to need to be protecting against that environment the Bulgin connector that the standard buccaneer that was the original connector is a circular screw locking connector that's designed to withstand all of these nasty conditions and the clever thing that Bulgin has been able to do is take that that proven technology and then they've scaled it so we've got very large connectors that can provide power connections for things like these ders that we're talking about that the power needs of homes and and vehicles and then at the other end we've got very small connectors that can provide the the the interlink for sensors and for other devices they all use that same circular technology they will use the same materials the same idea of a screw locking connector that will protect against the environment to perform almost any function that you need and again just to just to sort of wrap up and bring the conversation to a close the Bulgin website is the key place to go to for this because then you'll be able to do a deep dive into the range of buccaneer connectors these circular connectors that David's been talking about you can research the the housing componentry so would you want them to be metal you need to be made of a polymer what ip rating d needs your connector to be you can research all of that over on the Bulgin website and as i mentioned earlier you can dive into case studies where these connectors have been used and of course you can get help should you need it and choosing the the best connector from the building range for the project that you're working on so David it looks like the smart revolution is something that's here to stay and um we're going to be seeing the benefits of it in our own lives going forward absolutely it's not going anywhere and in fact the the joy of it is that engineers will always find new and innovative ways to be able to use this technology so we'll find it creepy into other parts of our lives but yeah smart technology is definitely here to stay okay David thank you for joining us on this episode of the Bulgin podcast great to talk to you Mark thank you very much hope you found this episode of the Bulgin podcast useful and helpful thanks for watching and thanks for listening you
2022-07-10